President Donald Trump has said he wants to take charge of elections throughout the United States. There is nothing in our Constitution, or any law passed in the 250 year history of our country, that permits him to do this. The last person who supposedly said “L’Etat c’est moi” (“The State is me”) was King Louis XIV of France in 1655.

The Constitution specifically gives the power to regulate elections to the states. Anyone can read this in Article I, Section 4. Congress has passed laws giving the president special powers in a national emergency, but nothing in those laws gives him the power to take over elections.

Mr. Trump and his allies have filed and lost, or have had dismissed, over fifty lawsuits challenging his loss in the 2020 election. Judges who have ruled against him were appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents. Not one actual piece of evidence of a “stolen election” has been shown to be true.

Is voter fraud a problem in our country? Let’s look at the arithmetic. Approximately 7 billion ballots have been cast in presidential and local elections in the U.S. over the last twenty years. During this time, there were at most 200 individual votes proven fraudulent. This is 0.000003 percent of votes that were possibly fraudulent. Or, three votes out of every hundred million.

Is this a “stolen election?” Is it an “emergency?” Anything that could possibly justify the president taking the law unto himself? The only one trying to steal elections is Donald Trump.

ARNO VOSK, M.D.

Williamsport

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom